Payton lays out keys for Broncos in final half of season

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Bad as it seems the morning after the 41-10 shellacking at Baltimore, the Broncos are still in the playoffs as it stands just past the season’s halfway point with a 5-4 record.

The Broncos are holding the No. 7 playoff seed, a full game better than 8th-seeded Indianapolis, which is 4-5.

Mark it down now: The biggest game of the Broncos’ season may well be right after their bye week, Game 14 on Dec. 15 against the Indianapolis Colts at Empower Field at Mile High.

The keys for the Broncos as they navigate the final eight games on their regular-season schedule?

“Consistency of us offensively rushing the football and defensively continuing the success we’ve had prior to yesterday defending the run is going to be vital to this team winning,’’ Payton said Monday in his day-after-game media conference call. “We’re minus one right now in the turnover battle. If we’re having that discussion towards the end of the season, that’s not going to be good. That has to be something in our favor.”

There have been a few strong teams over the years who could win despite losing the turnover battle. Payton pointed out the 2015 Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos (-4 in turnover margin) and the 2022 Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs (-3).

“Now when our program is further along – we did this study the other day, it was pretty interesting, you look at the elite teams in our history,’’ Payton said. “Who were the best teams at surviving minus turnovers. I think the ’15 Broncos was one of the teams listed. The ’22 Chiefs. These teams they won 80% of their games when they were minus in the giveaway/takeaway. Obviously their margin for error was much different.”

“If we’re having problems defending the run or we’re having problems in not having the ability to slow the game down, play it on our terms I think it’s going to be challenging for us to accomplish our goals,” he said.

Tom Payton, Sean’s brother, isn’t going to like this but with the NFL trade deadline is 24 hours away, the Broncos don’t seem to have much happening in terms of acquiring a player. The Broncos did trade away outside linebacker Baron Browning to the Arizona Cardinals on Monday in exchange for a sixth-round draft pick. As far as being a “buyer” that may change in the hours and minutes leading up to the 2 p.m. MST Tuesday deadline as general manager George Paton and his personnel staff work the phones and e-mails.

But Payton is more focused on his next opponent, the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, than he is acquiring a new running back or receiver or tight end that makes sense.

“Superman is not walking in,’’ Payton said. “My brother’s the worst at this. He’s the worst at free agency, and he’s the worst at the trade deadline. He just wants to see action. And then right after the action takes place, he never goes back and reflects and says, ‘Well that was a bad signing,’ or ‘That was a bad trade.’

“I kid him, but I think there’s so much that goes into whether you’re trading a player or acquiring a player,” Payton said. “Contracts go into it, vision goes into it, locker room goes into it. There’s a lot of details that go into that.”

Other topics Payton addressed Monday:

* The most mystifying and troubling aspect of the Broncos getting creamed Sunday by the Ravens was their poor defensive effort.

Part of it can be explained on the Ravens putting two blockers on Denver’s most dynamic defensive lineman, Zach Allen.

Allen entered the game with 4.0 sacks and leading all interior defensive linemen with 26 quarterback hurries and was fourth with 17 quarterback hits. Against the Ravens, Allen didn’t show up on the final tackle sheet. He played 50 of 57 defensive snaps, but registered not one tackle, much less a quarterback pressure.

Essentially, the Ravens’ game planned to take Allen out of the game.

“I’ve never been double-teamed more in my life,’’ Allen said Sunday in the postgame locker room. “Which is a compliment; it’s also frustrating. Got to deal with that.’’

The strategy worked as after the first series, when Allen’s defensive end partner John Franklin-Myers came up with an 11-yard sack, the Denver defenders could not get a hand on Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson, who sliced up the secondary in the passing game. Jackson finished with 280 yards passing, 3 touchdowns, no interceptions and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.

Were there flaws in the Denver defense, or was it that Jackson is a one-of-a-kind?

“I would say a little bit of both,’’ Payton said. “He extended plays. He does that really well. Especially extending right, he uses a real strong stiff-arm. And then he made some plays from the pocket and they ran the ball pretty well.

“There weren’t a lot of quarterback designed runs. When we did the research when he missed Wednesday and Thursday, it’s happened two other times, they’re a little less apt to run him on the designed runs. So we saw a little more conventional offense but nonetheless, it was a combination.”

*Getting more carries for rookie running back Audric Estime, who in the game’s final 5 minutes had five carries for 35 yards.

“I think that’s a good and fair question and one that I think I would answer, ‘Yes.’’’

*Time management. The offense settling for a field goal late in the first half, but left 54 seconds on the clock for the Ravens to score a quick touchdown and go up 24-10 at halftime. The Ravens then scored on the opening possession of the second half to lead, 31-10.

“Here’s one thing that gets passed around a lot: I know how to score field goals slow. But when people talk about scoring touchdowns slow, I don’t understand it. The only time I understand scoring touchdowns slow is when it becomes goal to go. But if its not goal to go I don’t know how to score slow touchdowns. I know how to milk the clock, kick a later field goal, get inside the 10, goal to go. But outside the 10 I still haven’t seen the analytics on that. I don’t think they exist really. So I’m mindful of the time, but I’m trying to score (a touchdown).’’